How do you make PNG sprites?

[Shino1]

I feel like I'm slowly going insane, and I might be a complete idiot.

I am trying to add a PNG file to use as a sprite for a decoration object (obviously for a GZDoom map). The object is static, and has a single static frame with no rotations. That's literally all I want. I genuinely don't understand what steps do I need to do. I tried following the guides I found for SLADE and on ZDoom wiki, but I genuinely don't understand what I'm doing wrong, and regardless what I do, I cannot get the sprite to actually show up in-game. I also genuinely cannot comprehend the relationship between the patches, textures, the textures lump, or how the SLADE texture editor is supposed to work. I thought I understood it because I previously added textures to WADs, but when I try to use the same approach with sprites it doesn't work.

 

Attached a WAD with my attempts in case you want something to laugh at. Both attached Decorate objects are meant to represent the same thing - a custom tree object, I just made two separate objects with the same sprite so I can troubleshoot faster.

 

Can anyone please lay it out what steps am I supposed to take to do what I want - add a PNG sprite for a decoration - in a fool-proof manner? Sorry for being an idiot.

forest.zip

[Lippeth]

All it needs are start and end markers around the tree sprite. "S_START" and "S_END" with the tree sprite between.

[boris]

Since you're targeting GZDoom you should look into using ZIP as WAD replacement. With that you can just put the sprites in the "/sprites" folder and be done with it.

[Shino1]

Well, now I feel like even more of an idiot. Thanks a ton!

[Lippeth]

I certainly know how it goes, there's no way to know until you know! Even the smartest folks (of which I am not) have blind spots.

 

I'm sure someone can explain the difference between textures/sprites/flats/graphics better than I can so I won't even try, but they all do handle a little differently.

[Shino1]

1 minute ago, Lippeth said:

I certainly know how it goes, there's no way to know until you know! Even the smartest folks (of which I am not) have blind spots.

 

I'm sure someone can explain the difference between textures/sprites/flats/graphics better than I can so I won't even try, but they all do handle a little differently.

I think I get it now. Somehow I missed the marker thing and assumed that the reason it wasn't working involved texture definitions. But now (after testing this) I realize that no, the marker is literally all that is necessary. So you literally helped me figure this out completely.

[Shino1]

On 3/15/2022 at 10:20 AM, boris said:

Since you're targeting GZDoom you should look into using ZIP as WAD replacement. With that you can just put the sprites in the "/sprites" folder and be done with it.

Yeah, I'm working on learning the PK3 stuff.